Saturday, December 21, 2013

Small hanging cabinet with drawers part 2

To me the beginning of a project out here at the sea is the least fun part. Like any other woodworker I need some material to work from. This is commonly known as stock preparation.

At home I would cross cut some wood, and joint it on the jointer, bring it to thickness in the planer, and then get on with the fun part of joining the pieces together.

Out here I have to cross cut the pieces, rip everything with a handsaw, plane the stock to the desired thickness, and then I can get to the joinery.

In an attempt to be a little more effective than usual, I decided that I would rip most of the wood for the carcase, before starting to plane it.
My last build out here (the seaborne chest) was not made quite that way: I would rip a couple of boards, plane them, find out I needed more, rip again, plane again and so forth..

Yesterday evening and tonight I have been busy ripping a total of 9' (270 cm) of 6" stock. I timed my efforts out of interest, and I can rip 2' in about half an hour with the saw I have available. The surface isn't quite as nice as a band sawn surface would be, but once it will be planed it will be OK.

I have made the initial stock preparations for the sides of the carcase, the back of the carcase and the horizontal and vertical dividers.

The sides are hopefully going to end up being around 1/2" (12 mm) and the back and the dividers around 5/16" (8 mm).
Tomorrow I intend to find an old pallet and see if I can salvage some wood that will be fitting for the drawers. I also need to find the future rails and stiles for the door, but I could always rip those out of the 6" stock if I have to.
If the pallets are too wet, I might decide to rip everything out of the 6" stock, since that is perfectly dry already. The problem is it will require more work from my side.